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Volo was almost history, almost, you could hardly recall the man’s face from your battle months ago yet part of you clung to the blonde hair and the chalky grey eyes that you could now only bring up to the likes of cyclones; messy, crazed and hiding a distinct pattern of destruction beneath them. Part of you felt like you should have seen Volo’s lunacy the second you had met him and, perhaps that was why you were so bothered by his image in your mind. Nights had been spent trying to forget the feeling of betrayal yet it lingered nonetheless. Volo had tricked you, and if there was one thing that was more humiliating than losing a pokemon battle, it was winning one that you never anticipated having to have.
Your days continued, with or without Volo, and while Jubilife called for you to tend to task after task, you often found yourself straying off to aimlessly wander Hisui’s fields and caves. Hisui was beautiful, even despite its mystery and well–unfortunate associated memories; but honestly, if there was anywhere you’d wish to have ‘fallen out of the sky’ from, it would be Hisui every time.
A Wyrdeer had become your closest acquaintance, a friend just as much as a mode of transportation and you had found out quickly that it was quite convenient to strap a saddle on and carry just about every berry and pokeball you had around. Even more convenient considering the amount of ‘sightseeing’ you had self-proclaimed in your schedule despite the fact that you had seen these same Hisuian hills dozens of times before.
One thing, however, you had frequently neglected, was the caves of Hisui– at least recently you had. It was hard to navigate caves on a near six foot pokemon and frankly, you were just way too lazy to get off and wander with your bag weighing you down. You were bored this time and boredom took you to the entrance of a cave you had looked over several times. It seemed quaint and small but if you were lucky, maybe you’d run into a Crobat or whatever other pokemon you had yet to catch.
Your footsteps echoed inside but only seconds after you realized you were not moving further without a source of light. Yes, it was a bit too small for something as inconvenient and.. You did love your pokemon dearly without using them as tools..but you were almost instantly relieved when the fiery purple mane of your Typhlosion let you see more than the previous two feet ahead. Purple was moody, sure, but any light was better than none right now.
The cave was tight in comparison to some of the other caves you’d seen in Hisui but you thankfully could see a quickly opening extension that seemed to hold much more room for both you and your Typhlosion alike. There were little pokemon around, but that wasn’t all that strange; sometimes areas just weren't all that popular.
What you did, however, find strange, was the several littered items around; rotten berries that were half eaten, broken potion bottles and even a few scraps of cloth. It was unsettling, to think maybe this used to have been–or maybe still was a nest of a rather big pokemon, by the looks of some of the bites in the now inedible berries. Still, you moved forward; fear became rather mundane as long as your pokemon stuck right by you. You had gone through much worse than encountering potentially dangerous pokemon. The further you went in, the larger the walls around you became and watching each step felt less necessary the more the ground below you unravelled into several feet of spacious stone. You were busy looking at the near pristine walls of the cave, comforting your worries of running into something large enough to have created bigger holes in the cave itself. You were so distracted, in fact, you stumbled right into what you could only guess by the sound, was a thick piece of metal. It clattered against the ground and you had quickly fumbled for stability by grasping onto a thick piece of stone in the wall near you. You caught yourself, but whatever had fallen was already further ahead. Carefully, you approached, a cooking pot lightly scuffed up ahead; though that was surely not the worst of the damage it had. You may have caused the scuffing, but the burn marks all across the steel was enough to consider it damaged already. Either way, what the hell was it doing here?
A good distraction it perhaps was, as you had failed to look around for even a moment to make out the features of a whole, homely set up around you. There was no one around yet all of their belongings remained, a messy futon; a basket of different potions, berries and even pokeballs. You swallowed your own unease, this was not uncommon, sure, but it didn’t make you feel any less uncomfortable to technically have been in someone else's living space. Still, curiosity was tethered to you and while feeling like the most egregious sin..you continued to look, stepping forward upon a small chest where a few photos remained neatly framed and set atop. Your knee hit the ground, crouching to gently pick one up and take a closer look at it in the light. At first, you thought maybe it was too dark to tell..but the pit in your stomach that had formed was enough to almost immediately confirm the validity of your eyesight.
“Stop moving.”
Your heart jumped and the frame that had been so unusually clean for its environment shattered, leaving only the slightly faded photo of Volo…and more peculiarly…you. You didn’t listen to the voice that was so unwaveringly familiar and immediately spun onto your feet, your Typhlosion beside you burning just the slightest brighter. It almost didn’t feel real to see the man you thought would be long outside of Hisui right inside of it, only about a fifteen minute ride outside of Jubilife. You hardly gave Volo time to open his mouth again before you pushed right towards him, tackling him down and pressing your palms deep into his shoulders. Your knees locked him against the ground and while your breath could have been mistaken for being winded-ly loud, it was anger more than anything that was pushing each grunted huff out of your lips.
“You’re supposed to be gone.” You hissed out, fingertips digging into the same cloth you had last remembered seeing Volo in months ago–only, with a few more stains and scuffs. Volo, in fact, almost looked exactly like you remembered if not for the thin layer of dirt you had kicked up onto him when tackling him. His hair was longer, sure, but other than that, he looked exactly as he did..that day, specifically that day.
“Im not supposed to be anywhere.” The calmed tone of his voice only made you more angry than before; how could he sound the same.. How could he have been so fucking close this entire time whilst you spent every night imagining that he was off dead somewhere or worse, enslaved as some grunt?! Your hands were pressing hard enough to ache your knuckles, the quiver in your wrists enough to force you to break away and shove Volo into the ground; as if that would somehow make him further away.
“No, no! You’re supposed to be fucking gone! I don’t want to see your face! You lunatic–psycho!” There were harsher words you could have used, honestly– Volo had ruined everything you had worked towards for what felt like a year–or at least, that was what you had told yourself. Perhaps, some of the real ‘ruin’ in this case was actually the heartbreak you felt when you realized Volo was not all that reliable and charming as you initially thought.
“Well, I certainly didn’t ask you to come here, you came on your own accord.” Volo huffed, shuffling himself up to sit after being near mended to the floor by the pressure of your hands. Sure, it hurt, but he couldn’t deny that for the first time in awhile, his chest had softened upon the sight of seeing you. It was different than the times he had hidden when seeing you across a field–praying that you hadn’t noticed him and realized that he was really not that far at all. There was something about you–maybe your skills, that made Volo want to stick around, convincing himself that it was nothing but for the sake of re-achieving his goal of changing this world. You could help him do that, it was for that sole purpose that he stayed and definitely not the months of connection you both had built..and the familiarity that was your face.
“I didn’t exactly anticipate someone living in a cave less than fifteen minutes away from Jubilife.” You cursed out in the worst of tones; you were pissed, pissed that Volo was still around, pissed he was so close, pissed that you had even seen him…or, instead, pissed it had taken this long just to remember his face in full detail again. “Or– maybe I also didn’t expect to find a photo with me in it in some…some cave!” Your glance around as you shouted made it abundantly clear you were judging him. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as dingy as you would have believed, sure; it was in a cave, there was gravel and dirt and weeds poking out from the ground..but it didn’t smell, it wasn’t too cold..and, well, it was clear Volo was accommodated by the local ponds as he looked about half clean.
“Call me sentimental.” He hummed, trying dearly to sound unbothered yet it was easy–at least for you, to catch the embarrassment in his tone. This wasn’t how he wanted to be seen. Volo stepped forward, looking you up and down with the stillest of expressions.
“I don’t want to fight you, leave.” Volo’s voice was harsh but not as anticipatedly angry as you thought; he was being gentle, despite everything. Volo had done this to himself; he was at fault for being as deranged as he was–is. Yet, you couldn’t help but wonder how he had been coping with his failure..why he still had a picture of you two together framed and more importantly, why he had stayed? Even when his dreams of getting the plates were history.
“I don't think you have any power over what I do right now.” You cleared your throat, crossing your arms as you watched Volo move past you and sweep together the pieces of broken glass with nothing but his hand. “Even if I did leave, you owe me at least one answer.” The tension between either of you was not nearly as thick as it could have been, surprisingly; the understanding of ‘I gain nothing from attacking you’ made things
Volo’s hands seemed roughened up, at least rough enough that he didn’t wince at the small cuts that formed from scraping together the broken shards of glass. They didn’t bleed, more so scraped away a small piece of skin, still he didn’t react, simply brushing the glass to the side and dusting his palms off above the pile. You hadn’t seen him pick it up, but the photo was no longer in the place it had fallen.
“Well?” Volo’s mutter had reminded you that you were about to ask him something.
“The photo? You kept it, why?” There were a million other things to ask yet the most useless and frankly, obvious question came out instead. Volo stifled a laugh and you clenched your arms tighter at the hope that he would just shut up and give you the answer you already knew.
“You don’t need to ask me that–” Volo’s response did you no good, you were quick to cut him off. “Please. Give me something that isn’t just an educated guess on my half.” The truth was, you didn’t know just as much as you did know.
“Maybe I’m nostalgic, does that make you happy?” Volo stood, pants dirtied at the knees, he didn’t seem too pleased to be pried into his reasonings..but he certainly wasn’t angry. He did, however, seem fidgety, hands shifting inside one of his pockets, the soft crinkling of paper accompanying the silence you had left him with for at least a minute.
“No, actually, it doesn’t make me happy, because I know it’s bullshit.” Your tone was growing harsher, you didn’t want to be here but you didn’t want to leave. Volo had been the recurring pain in your mind for months yet it felt that he was the only one who could cure the pain all the same. You had missed..whatever you two had and seeing him live in this pathetic excuse for what a home could be only made you miss the empathetic Volo you knew even more. He seemed smaller than he was in this moment and part of you had unknowingly deregistered him as a threat while the rest of you were urging you to run, leave, do whatever got you away from him.
“Volo, why did you do it?” Your voice choked embarrassingly, steps crunching against some of the loose pebbles on the ground and body hit with the strangest of chills. Without being rushed with the adrenaline of tackling Volo to the ground, you realized just how familiar everything about him was. You were used to eying him up before..everything, but it had been so long you had forgotten what it was like to stare down every pore on his face finding some way not to look him in the eye.
“You knew how things were going– we were–” Thickly you swallowed whatever had caught itself in your throat but before you could even push out words you were cut off by Volo’s irritatingly mellow voice.
“What should I have done? Wait?” Volo crossed his arms, you couldn’t help but find yourself taking another step forward in response, like it was a challenge to be firmer.
“I have goals, plans; I have trajectories that you weren’t supposed to be involved in until you started collecting those fucking plates–” He dragged his hands over his face, huffing out as if every second spent talking about this was breaking a seal he had long spent creating. “Why did you have to get involved?” His hand was clenched, tightly grasping at his own palm. “Why couldn’t you have just..fallen out of the sky..and keep to your own business? You could have been with me, you.. You could have stayed with me.” With a varying amount of concern and frustration Volo spoke between harsh breaths.
You two had grown closer than you had at first realized, you could almost smell the Tuli berry that you had snuck from his wares several times.
“And what, be crazy like you?” You choked out, your hand had unwillingly budged forward, grabbing Volo's arm.
“You could be free, if only you had half the brain to admit it.” Volo reached his hand out to cup over yours, clenching at your fingers. Although his grip was tense and uncomfortable, the mere notion was warm..tender to think about..Volo seemed unsure about contact yet desperate for it all the same time…but you were no different. You had spent months dancing around each other, trying not to cross a line or be the one to start what would be the world's most distracting distraction… but now? A distraction wouldn’t ruin anything but your own judge of morals. Volo was deranged, he was definitely not the best of people to be mingling with….but your history was tempting; Volo was comfortable and familiar.
“You’re crazy.” You swallowed again, your throat started to ache with every other word and you instinctively pulled away. “You need to get out of Hisui, I don't want you here.” You went to step away, making it no more than a few steps before your wrist was grasped. Without turning, you listened, begrudgingly, you were already being sucked into admitting what you had been sitting on for months, you didn’t want more to unravel.
“You know that isn’t true– I know that isn’t true.” You could hear the soft dampening of his footsteps, the way he lingered just behind you. His presence was overwhelming, knowing you were seconds away from-
Volo’s hands were in your hair seconds from turning around, your lips met and your chests pressed against each other. It was less than a second long before you forced yourself to pull back. Only, immediately after, you pushed back into Volo, grunting as you both stumbled back into the wall. Your hand grasped his side, pressing into him deeply enough that you were sure it would leave a mark. Despite his grunts into your mouth, you didn’t relent your grasp. It was surely minutes before you broke apart from Volo, panting and hesitating to open your eyes as it would force you to realize the fact that you really had fallen for Hisui’s worst bachelor.
“Youre right, I don't want that.”